Goldberg and Guthrie

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Monday, March 01, 2004

Bush (good things)

The posting has been light of late, as social and employment obligations have called. I apologize to all of our loyal readers: those readers in big and small media; those reader who work at law firms; those readers who are simple government bureaucrats; those readers who are mothers to either Goldberg or myself; and finally to those readers who are Goldberg.

On Friday night I was talking with some fellow Democrats and, comfortingly, with voters best described as Independents who voted for Bush in 2000 and will not, under any circumstances, vote for him this time around. The conversation turned to what a stupid man Bush is - a common theme.

What oh what must happen in order for us to stop underestimating this man? Ann Richards laughed at him when he ran for governor of Texas. He won. He then beat the Vice President of the administration that had presided over the largest peace time expansion of the economy in American history. He became President without the support of the majority of the country, and yet has enjoyed widespread approval and support for nearly three straight years. While Democrats have dominated the political news cycle during all of 2004, he has quietly raised upwards of $100 million. He has spent none of it. Yet, he continues to lead either Kerry or Edwards in national polls - even though the economy is worse than it was when he took over, and the war that he lead us into has become more and more unpopular.

He has used this support to effect real change. He has passed his tax cut, passed his drug benefits bill, reshaped our foreign policy and appointed conservative judges to the bench.

Now, he has risked that political capital and is throwing his support behind a Constitutional Amendment - a move that politically could best be described as a gamble. Although many Democrats claim that this issue has been forced upon us by Bush in order to divide us - in fact, it has not. It has been forced upon us by gay people who want to be married. The Democratic response? We must leave this issue up to the states, and talk about other things.

Bush is doing what a leader does - he is standing up for something that at least resembles a principle. Granted, it is a principle of fear and anger and a perversion of a religion based on love and forgiveness into a political ideology based on hate. But he is acting like a President - and he is acting like and is a person who has a clear (if terrifying) vision of where he wants to lead this country and the ability to lead us there.

If this rant was unclear - we shouldn't misunderestimate this man again. We should just beat him. That's all.

UPDATE BY GOLDBERG: Bush/Cheney '04 has spent $39.1M as of the end of January.

"Update" has been edited for accuracy

UPDATE BY GUTHRIE: This may be true, and if so I apologize, but Bush/Cheney '04 is about to run its first major advertising campaign, which is what I should have said.